SW and M.E.

[DISFANS3]

Has anyone been on SW and used M.E. , is Southwest one of the Particpating airlines? We did receive the bag tags.. I am still thinking about just picking up our luggage to be on safe side? Any help with SW and M.E. Also is M.E. check in next to baggage claim?? 8 days left for us... Thanks.....

 

[goofy4tink]

I flew SW and used DME last August. No problems whatsoever. But, no, SW is not one of the 'participating' airlines. This impacts only your return to MCO from your resort. With SW, you will just take your bags with you to the DME bus. The driver will put the bags underneath the bus and you have to check them, as usual, at the airport. Those using 'participating' airlines can check their bags right at their resort and not have to worry about taking their bags to the airport.
The baggage claim area is different than the DME desk area. I would put the yellow tags on the bags and just bypass the baggage claim area. Then, when you get off the plane, just keep going downwards until you get to the bottom, where you will find DME, in the same area as the car rental people.
The only time I would suggest taking the bags from baggage claim (and not putting the yellow tags on beforehand) is if you are arriving late in the day. That way you would have your bags with you for the night.

 

[CleveRocks]

No matter what airline, EVERYONE gets luggage handling (delivery to the inside of your WDW resort room) as a perk of DME. "Participating airline" ONLY matters for your return trip, at the end of your vacation.

So go ahead, put those yellow DME tags on your checked luggage.

When any airline lands at any airport in the USA, that airline is responsible for the luggage only to a certain point, which is before the bags get to the public baggage claim area. After that certain point, the luggage is turned over to the custody of the airport itself. It's THEN that employees of a Disney subcontractor company called, appropriately enough, BAGS Inc. pulls out all of the DME-tagged bags. Those bags get sorted and then placed on trucks and are then delivered to the resorts; at that point, the resorts' Bell Services departments take it from there. The DME-tagged bags never get to the baggage claim carousel. The BAGS Inc. people don't touch the untagged bags, and they proceed to baggage claim like usual.

I wrote this out to help you feel at ease with using DME for luggage delivery even though you're not on a "participating airline." Now that you understand how the system works (that on your inbound trip your airline and every airline has NOTHING to do with the DME handling of your bags), I hope you won't feel nervous about using DME to have your checked luggage "magically appear" in your resort room a few hours after you land.

ENJOY YOUR TRIP!